prairie - The Environment Report

Native Landscapers Go Wild

Lisa Johnson shows off a rough blazing star, a native prairie plant. Johnson is a member of Wild Ones - Natural Landscapers, Ltd. The group encourages growing native plants to save the genetic diversity and to attract wildlife.
Small patches of native plants can include flowering plants, but some neighbors complain they're only weeds. Wild Ones works to educate people that the plants are beneficial and have beautiful blooms.

More and more backyard gardeners are tending plants they once
considered to be weeds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports… these backyard naturalists are creating tiny natural areas to
save the plants and attract wildlife:

Prairie State Losing Its Prairie Chickens

From a bird blind, Ronald Westemeier observes Greater Prairie Chickens on the booming ground. He spent his career trying to save the bird in Illinois.
The Greater Prairie Chicken used to live in the grasslands of nearly all the Great Lakes States. Now it's limited to a few areas. (photo courtesy Illinois DNR)

The Greater Prairie Chicken was once common throughout the Great Lakes
region, but now it’s disappeared from states like Pennsylvania, Ohio,
and Indiana. While some flocks have survived in Minnesota and
Wisconsin, Prairie Chickens in Illinois are in trouble. Several
management plans have failed and now conservationists are actively
working to save the few remaining birds. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham has the story:

Fire Helps Restore Bird Populations

Researchers are discovering fire has an effect on restoring some bird
populations. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Preserving Remnants of the Tallgrass Prairies

There’s an effort underway in western Minnesota to preserve the Midwest’s last remaining acres of northern tallgrass prairie. Once, the grasslands spanned close to 25 million acres through parts of Minnesota, the Dakotas and Iowa. More than 90% of the original tallgrass prairie was plowed under – what remains today are only patches of the early grasslands. Under a new U.S. Fish and Wildlife program the hope is to keep these last few areas intact for years to come. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Gretchen Lehmann reports:

The Prairie Pioneer

For almost forty years, Dr. Robert Betz searched the railroad tracks and
back roads of the Midwest for remnants of the nearly extinct tall-grass
prairie. Along the way, he helped define and popularize a new
environmental movement on the rise throughout the Great Lakes and the
country—a movement called ecological restoration. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Alex Blumberg has this report:

Rediscovering the Alvar

Imagine you’re wandering through the woods on a trail shaded by trees.You turn a corner, and suddenly, you’re standing at the edge of a rockygrassland plopped down in the middle of a Northeastern forest. Theseseemingly misplaced grasslands are known as alvars and theGreat Lakes is one of only two regions in the world where they occur.The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly visited one of theseunique sites and met two local volunteers who’ve become the unofficialcaretakers: